Dev couldn’t see the Revinir and her dragons very well from the ground because of the trees and brush, which made their impending arrival that much more ominous and frightening. He reached the spider-web-covered garden and stopped, feeling his heart pounding in his throat. Should he crawl under the webs and hide in there?

But no—just because Dev found it to be a scary place didn’t mean dragons would be scared of a few thousand spiders. They’d probably tromp right through it without noticing. He had to think like a dragon. Where could he go that they wouldn’t search? Or, more importantly, where they wouldn’t be able to smell him?

Dev’s breath became labored, and his mind went blank. He felt like a frightened rabbit, frozen with fear. And then he bolted, running crazily across the property in the dark, stepping on any number of painful things but barely feeling them pierce through his worn-out shoes. He couldn’t process anything. He couldn’t decide what to do. He could only remember the fleeting feeling of being free for those few hours, and now the threat of being caught was a hundred times worse than it had ever been before.

He tripped and dropped to his hands and knees. “No!” he sobbed. “I’m not going back!” Shaken from the fall yet even more resolved, he got up and kept running.

When he ran out of breath, surrounded by overgrowth and fog, he knew he was lost. He glanced at the sky, wondering if the Revinir had landed yet. He didn’t see her or any other dragons. Would he feel their impact when they hit the ground? He listened, and in that moment of stillness, he heard a familiar sound.

“The river,” he whispered, and the image of the rushing river with the forked branch sticking up jumped to the forefront of his mind. He took a few breaths, trying to calm down and think through his options. Was the image of the river coming from his ancestors, trying to tell him something?

When the ground shuddered, signaling a dragon landing, and then shuddered again and again, Dev knew he didn’t have a choice. He tore through the growth. Branches swatted at him, cutting his face and body, and he knew the scent of blood wouldn’t help him outwit the dragons.

The sound of the river grew louder, and he ran straight for it. Down the bank he went, leaping over the soft, wet mud that lined it, so he wouldn’t leave footprints. Then he sloshed through the water, waist deep, heading upstream, away from where the palace stood.

Every now and then he could hear a dragon snort. He could see flames shooting through the night air behind him. Dev kept moving, pushing against the current and constantly turning to see if the dragons were following the scent trail he’d left behind on land. He tried to take comfort in the fact that the river was a smart choice. His only choice.